GIFs: Indian Drought Now and Flood 10 Years Ago

Monsoon rains began arriving across India in early June 2016. For many Indians, it was not a moment too soon. After three underwhelming monsoon seasons, broad swaths of the country have been gripped by drought. An estimated 330 million people have been affected by depleted water supplies.

Of all of India’s reservoirs, Panchet Hill in Jharkhand was among the lowest compared to the 10-year average. In the first week of June 2016, the reservoir stood at 4 percent of capacity; the average for June is 40 percent. These two images were taken on June 10, 2015 and June 12, 2016

This is what it looks like at night on June 17, 2016, with much of India hotter than China’s biggest dessert in Xinjiang.

Some parts of India were as hot as 45 degrees Celcius in the evening of June 17, 2016, via earth.nullschool.net

Ten years ago, monsoons brought floods to India in June. Here’s what happened when Brahmaputra River burst its banks in 2006:

According to news reports, 25,000 people were displaced in India’s Assam state when the Brahmaputra River burst its banks in early June. When the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured the top image on June 3, 2006, the river was already swollen with a week’s worth of monsoon rains. (Earlier image was taken on May 25, 2006, via NASA Earth Observatory)